I was driving my 94 truck, 3.0 4X4 about 120,000 miles, on the freeway yesterday, 70 mph temp good everything running great. All of a sudden there's a loud pop like a fuse blowing, the dash lights up like a Christmas tree and I mean every light but the E brake comes on. Trucks dead. I coast to the side of the road. Check every fuse I can find and nothings blown. It turns over, all accesories work, but won't fire. Any Ideas? HELP!!!

Thanks, Tracy.

 

WAG: Timing Belt

 

What part of the timing belt would do that? My truck made a loud pop once and, outside of it scaring the mess out of me, the truck just kept going, and has for almost a year now since.

 

Unlike your car, this car wont run. So, timing belt is in play. I don't know what it breaking would do the dash lights.

 

a side-of-the-road test for whether its the timing belt is to remove the distributor cap and watch the rotor when someone bumps the starter. If the rotor doesn't turn, it's most likely the timing belt. Be careful; the parts of the timing belt went somewhere, and you don't want to be wedging it around the crank sprocket.

The lights on the dash come on with key-on, engine-off. If you break the timing belt, the distributor stops turning, the ECM doesn't get the IGF signal and shuts off the injectors to avoid an explosion.

It could be lots of things other than the timing belt, including a failed ignition coil or igniter, or just a fusible link letting go.

 

Did you check the fuses under the hood?

 

Also, the distributor may have seized due to the roll pin shearing...

 

I was hoping you wouldn't say the timing belt. We all know how much fun they are and I'd replaced it last year when the water pump went. I did check the fuses under the hood and none of them were bad but I didn't have a meter to actually test them either. I'll pull the distributor and try that and then at least I'll know or eliminate one potential problem.

Thanks for all the help.

Tracy

 

If you just replaced the timing belt, your odds of that being the problem greatly diminished. I thought that it had 120K miles on the original belt.

 

Could have been a fusible link blowing. That would suggest some other electrical issue going on/causing, but from what you're describing it sounds like a timing belt. Check that first I guess. And if not that, look at your fusible links. I think there's only 4-5 on the truck so not that bad to check...

 

all of the dash lights coming on when the engine died makes sense, it should have looked the same way when you first turned the ignition key on that morning, before the engine was started.

I wouldn't bother pulling the distributor until you check to see if the rotor is turning... see if it's pointing to #1 when you rotate the crank to tdc.